Uncertain Belief: Is It Rational to Be a Christian?

Do miracles happen? Is the Bible true? What about the paranormal? Does God exist? The underpinning of belief have crumbled in a world where science sets the standard of what is true; people continue to ask these questions but there are no agreed upon answers. At the rational level, uncertainty is inevitable. Probability theory provides the tools for measuring and combining uncertainties and, thus, the key to progress. Assessing the state of the argument from a probabilistic perspective is long overdue. In Uncertain Beliefs, David J. Bartholomew examines and refutes some of the more extravagant claims, evaluates the weight of some of the quantitative evidence, and provides an answer to the fundamental question: is it rational to be a Christian?

David J. Bartholomew is Professor of Statistics at London School of Economics.